Thursday, August 19, 2010

I came across this a couple of times recently so I figured I would blog about it. I've been working quite a bit on SharePoint 2010 projects, and usually I am called upon to do farm installs. I recommend that clients always do least privileged installs, so that means advising them on the accounts they need to create for their (dev/test/uat/prod farms) and best practices regarding those. Here is the list of accounts recommended for use on technet for a least privileged install.

Account

Purpose

Requirements

SQL Server service account

The SQL Server service account is used to run SQL Server. It is the service account for the following SQL Server services:

MSSQLSERVER

SQLSERVERAGENT

If you do not use the default SQL Server instance, in the Windows Services console, these services will be shown as the following:

MSSQL$InstanceName

SQLAgent$InstanceName

Use either a Local System account or a domain user account.
If you plan to back up to or restore from an external resource, permissions to the external resource must be granted to the appropriate account. If you use a domain user account for the SQL Server service account, grant permissions to that domain user account. However, if you use the Network Service or the Local System account, grant permissions to the external resource to the machine account (domain_name\SQL_hostname$).
The instance name is arbitrary and was created when Microsoft SQL Server was installed.

Setup user account

The Setup user account is used to run the following:

Setup

SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard

Domain user account.

Member of the Administrators group on each server on which Setup is run.

SQL Server login on the computer that runs SQL Server.

Member of the following SQL Server security roles:

securityadmin fixed server role

dbcreator fixed server role

If you run Windows PowerShell cmdlets that affect a database, this account must be a member of the db_owner fixed database role for the database.

Server farm account or database access account

The server farm account is used to perform the following tasks:

Configure and manage the server farm.

Act as the application pool identity for the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

Run the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service.

Domain user account.

Additional permissions are automatically granted for the server farm account on Web servers and application servers that are joined to a server farm.
The server farm account is automatically added as a SQL Server login on the computer that runs SQL Server. The account is added to the following SQL Server security roles:

dbcreator fixed server role

securityadmin fixed server role

db_owner fixed database role for all SharePoint databases in the server farm

Ok, makes sense. So you login to the app server with the setup account, and install SharePoint. Then you do the same on one or more Web Servers. Now go back to the app server and run the Configuration Wizard and set up the farm and Central Admin. After some configuration (setting up services, the first site collection), you come back to the Web Servers and attempt to add them to the farm. The whole process goes smoothly and the Web Server connects to the farm. Great, now you go to the Servers in Farm page in Central Admin, and to your dismay the Web Server line item shows an error and that it needs upgrading.

What?? So you run the 'stsadm -o localupgradestatus' on the Web Server and it shows you as everything being ok. Hmm..

Resolution
The way I found to get around this is to remove the Web Server from the farm, then log off the Web Server. Log back on using the Server farm account, not the setup account. Now run the Configuration Wizard and add the Web Server back to the farm. This works well and now when you go to the 'Servers in Farm' page, everything looks good!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The SharePoint Guidance V3 has been released on MSDN. Here is an overview:

Developing Applications for SharePoint 2010 contains guidance documentation, detailed examples, and a reusable class library. These resources are designed to help solution developers and architects make the right decisions and follow proven practices when designing and developing applications for SharePoint 2010. The guidance focuses primarily on the building blocks that every developer needs to understand to become an effective SharePoint developer or architect. The following diagram shows the key areas that are covered within the guidance documentation, reference implementations, and reusable class library.

The guidance documentation is divided into four core sections.

Application Foundations for SharePoint 2010. This section describes approaches you can use to address the challenges of testability, flexibility, configuration, logging and exception handling, and maintainability; it also explains how to use the SharePoint Guidance Library components in these areas.

Execution Models in SharePoint 2010. This section provides deep technical insights into the mechanics of the full-trust execution environment, the sandbox execution environment, and various hybrid approaches to executing code in SharePoint applications.

Data Models in SharePoint 2010. This section explains new list and external data functionality, key design decision points that can help you to choose between standard SharePoint lists and external lists, and techniques and patterns to address large lists and list aggregation.

I realize I haven't blogged in a while, but hopefully I should be back on here blogging about all the stuff I am doing in SharePoint 2010. It's a great platform, and I have been working on it for a few months.

So here is the scenario:
You are using Windows 7 x64 bit and have installed SharePoint 2010 on it. You are building great solutions in VS 2010 for SharePoint 2010. You spin up a quick Console Application to try some stuff out against your local instance of SharePoint and your program throws up an error at this line, indicating that the site cannot be found.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite([your local URL]))

This happens because Visual Studio is configured to build for x86 by default. To get past this error, right click on the solution file in Visual Studio --> click on properties, on the top right click on Configuration manager and add a x64 configuration. Then go to project properties --> Build --> Select x64 as the target platform.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

So I was just installing a new SharePoint 2010 Enterprise RC farm just recently and while I was waiting for the services page to finish creating the services, I took a quick peek at the DB server to figure what was going on in the backend. I have installed the SP 2010 beta version a couple of times before, but have to admit never looked in the database to see what was going on.

It appears that all the services are not segregated in their own databases, instead of the SSP database managing the services as in the 2007 version. Here is a snapshot of the available databases. DBA's, be forewarned :).

Here are the two screenshots. The first shows the Farm configuration wizard after the services have been configured. The second shows the databases that have been created.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Just wanted to let you guys know that AIC is doing an event in Denver next week - called "Slashing Costs with SharePoint 2010 in the Real World". Come attend to learn more about this very insightful presentation.

Join Analysts International (AIC), SoftwareONE and AmeriTeach for a luncheon with Anthony Lopez, Vice President, Information Technology at RE/MAX International, Inc. Anthony will discuss how RE/MAX International partnered with AIC to reduce their costs by 75% using Microsoft SharePoint.

In conjunction with Anthony’s presentation, there will be discussion of the features and functionalities of SharePoint 2010 along with how these new features enable IT to continue to deliver business solutions and reduce cost simultaneously. Additionally, the team will highlight the various licensing options and will guide you through the deployment and hosting options available. Lastly, we will discuss the options available for assisting your upgrade or implementation of SharePoint through training your team, as well as, how to leverage Software Assurance benefits to do so effectively.

Whether you are currently running SharePoint or not, understand the power of SharePoint 2010 and engage with your peers who currently are experiencing the business benefits that SharePoint has to offer, including;